Event reports
The Nazaha project is implemented by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) together with its local Palestinian partner AMAN (Coalition for Accountability and Integrity) to combat corruption in the NGO sector and to strengthen the Palestinian civil society through enhancing accountability and good governance as part of the European Union’s “Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights”.
The PA Allocation and Distribution report aims at examining the in- and outgoing finances of the PA and critically reflects on the transparency of the PA budget. Furthermore, the report describes and identifies problems of the last reporting period from January 2006 until June 2007. During most of that period the finance ministry had been under the control of the Hamas-led government which did not receive financial aid from the Western donor countries to pay the salaries of state-employees. Instead, the financial influx to the Palestinian government mainly took place by means of high-ranking members of the Hamas-government personally carrying large sums of donations from other countries to the Palestinian Territories. The report notes that this practice made it impossible to ensure any kind of accountability. Nevertheless, since the political and budgetary situation has changed since the government of Salam Fayyad has been appointed in June 2007, several options to ensure future transparency in the allocation and distribution process are presented in the report. Among others, it is suggested that the budget plan for 2008 should be presented to the PLC and that NGOs should be involved in defining the priorities within the budget. In addition, it is proposed to establish a financial system within the finance ministry that would prevent people in power from abusing their position for personal gains.
Accompanied by representatives of President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Fayyad announced to undertake corrections on the whole financial system of the PA which would enable greater accountability. In order to increase the transparency of the government, the Prime Minister also agreed on many of the recommendations submitted by the Nazaha-project in its PA Allocation and Distribution Report. This includes Fayyad’s commitment to publish a monthly report on the ministry’s financial status, starting this September.
President Abbas’ representative, Dr. Rafiq Husseini, stressed the importance of such a report not only for the government but also for the public. He explained that the PA has opened a special channel for outgoing money in order to facilitate supervision. Though looking back at the last year, Dr. Husseini stated that “the internal problems with Hamas made any kind of accountability impossible”.
The general coordinator of AMAN, Dr. Azmi Shuaibi, underlined the important role of NGOs in questioning the PA. He also criticized that there have been set backs in the process of reaching transparency under the last Hamas government. “The civil society has to be trained on how to question the public sector and to fight corruption”, he insisted.